Written by

Brian Truitt, USA TODAY

In Richard Armitage's case, the shoes indeed make the dwarf in director Peter Jackson's The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. For a span of 240 production days that wrapped up this past summer, Armitage trudged around New Zealand in his unique footwear while filming the just-opened movie and two more Hobbit chapters: next year's Desolation of Smaug and 2014's There and Back Again.

The 6-foot-2 British actor plays Thorin Oakenshield, a dwarf warrior on a quest to take his land back from the evil dragon Smaug. And thanks to some movie magic, ...